Anyone try "Ultimate 3D Collection" w/IMAX Haunted Castle & 2 more + 3D Glasses? (1 Viewer)

[David Lambert]

Link Removed
Saw this at Best Buy for $79.99. Has IMAX films Haunted Castle, Alien Adventure, & Encounter in the Third Dimension, but also comes with two pairs of 3-D glasses plus an interface box that apparently hooks up to the outs on the player, IIRC.
My wife's been interested in Haunted Castle since we first read up on it on the 'Net, but it's never played in town. Its' DVD is available for about $15 separately, but I'd have to order it and this glasses system looks interesting.
Has anyone tried this package? Apparently it's been out since November-ish last year, and is popular enough to warrant a new horror-only themed tri-pack with glasses set to come out late this summer.
Any feedback whatsoever? Thanks,

 

[AlbertH]

my friend just bought these, he says they are pretty cool but only work with composite video , no s-video or component.

 

[David Lambert]

So, how is the 3D effect? Is it worth $80? Can these glasses be used with anything else at all? Are these films looking decent without them?

 

[John Berggren]

I've been intrigued by this for a while, but I've been put off by the price point and the fact that I haven't seen it at B&M so far. I would also be interested in a review. My main interest is the 3D and the hope that future IMAX titles might take advantage of the device - such as Space Station 3d, AND Cyberworld.

I'm concerned about not being able to use it with S-Video though. Is this true? Why would this be?

 

[Brian Kidd]

I think it's because you have to hook up an interface box between your dvd player and television set and the box only has composite inputs and outputs.

 

[GregK]

my friend just bought these, he says they are pretty cool but only work with composite video , no s-video or component.

The H3D glasses can and do work with S-Video and

component video, but the transmitter box requires a

composite input to sync the glasses to the picture. I use

the composite out from my DVD or S-VHS to feed the reference

sync pulse to the transmitter, but I watch the S-Video input

and it works great.

The big rub most HDTV home theater buffs may run into is

if they have a monitor or a DVD player that does not do the

interlace to progressive scan conversion (for 3-D) properly.

Just like the film "3-2 pulldown" mode used to be a rarity,

finding a progressive set or DVD player which does this

conversion properly is the trick. (HTF members still in the

interlaced world don't need to worry about this snag.) If

there are those progressive users who wish to give it a try,

remember to try the various "video" progressive video mode

options found in most DVD and high def sets. Leaving the

set or player in "film" or "auto" mode will almost certainly

lead to a useless blurry mess. "Interpolation" or "Bobbing"

is the key here.

Also, LCD sets tend to ghost with field-sequential 3-D

material, as the LCDs have a slower decay rate.

 

[Wes C]

Haunted Castle was the worst IMAX I have ever seen.

 

[PatrickM]

I did buy the set a little while ago but have only watched bits and pieces of the three films. The 3-D effects work to varying degrees. Some are excellent, almost jumping out at you and others are negligible at best. The glasses aren't bad and they do come with quite a long extension so its not bad.

Overall its a great novelty item but its not something you'll watch a ton.

Patrick

 

[Steve Phillips]

I use an S-connection with this 3-D unit and it works fine. Also remember there are tons of 3-D movies available in this format besides the IMAX discs.

 

[John Berggren]

Perhaps, but are any of them as compelling as the IMAX discs? Is there someplace to get a complete list?

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Would Best Buy allow a return for credit if the hardware was incompatible with your home equipment?

Might these work with a Sony TV in 960i doubler mode?

 

[Jesse Skeen]

What's the other set coming out? I'm watching my discs with the old 3-D TV Corporation box and Sega Master System glasses which work OK, but I'll probably get the newer system one of these days since the Sega glasses are really dark and require turning up the contrast and brightness. I was going to order the glasses separately but if another set with discs I don't already have is coming out I'll wait for that (I already bought the IMAX discs separately before I found out they were available with the glasses in a set.)

 

[Jesse Skeen]

OK, I just found this out: the new set will be called "3D Horror Collection" and include 2 sets of glasses and 3 movies: Zombie Chronicles, Camp Blood (hmmm, wonder where they got THAT title from??) and Hunting Season. List price is $99.99, discs by themselves are $19.99 and come out 7/23. I'll get the box set this time so I'll have the newer 3-D glasses.

Sure wish more of the classics would come out; I heard Anchor Bay was going to release "Parasite" in field-sequential 3-D. A lot of the 80's 3-D films were put out in Japan on the VHD videodisc format (similar to CED which never came out in the US.) I have a few titles on VHS that I bought in 1990 from 3-D TV Corp, including The Stewardesses (a trippy 1969 softcore flick) and Andy Warhol's Frankenstein.

 

[David Lambert]

What's the other set coming out?

Looks like 7/23 according to Bestbuy.com but their having technical difficulties at their site and I can't pull up details. It's called "Ultimate 3d Horror Coll (3 Pk) (W Glasses)".
Whoops, you beat me to it while I was researching!

 

[GregK]

Might these work with a Sony TV in 960i doubler mode?

I know Sony has different variations of it's DRC 960i/480p
interpolation mode, but on the Sony XBR I tried the 3D discs
on, the 3-D worked almost perfectly in the 960i mode. The
"almost" part was a slight blue bar at the bottom of the
screen when viewed through the glasses. I'm guessing this
is a small side effect of video delay from the glasses
reference point and the DRC processing. In either case, I
still thought the image looked great and the 3-D worked
well.
I've seen 3-D VHS versions of "Camp Blood" and "Zombie
Chronicles" and while they're fun it should be noted that
these are ...um, well.. "low budget" 3-D productions. I
like to refer to them as "3-Bs". ..Three Beers and they're
all right!
Jessie & Steve are right in that there have been some good
field-sequential 3-D video releases previously. The Japanese
VHD videodisc versions of Jaws 3-D, Friday III, House of
Wax and others were top-notch 3-D video releases. If one
can track down these 3-D classics on video in field-
sequential, it's a great treat.

 

[FrankD]

Well I just received the IMAX "The Ultimate 3-D Collection" and initially played it on my Panasonic 36 inch TV (using the speakers of my TV) and it was OK to good.

However when I played it on my Sony 1271 front projector on a 87 inch diagonal screen - WOW it was worth the money!

The darker the room the better. Also I have a full surround system with Lexicon MC-1 and used the Surround Ex feature on the DD track (the Ex feature put John (main character name, I believe) right behind me! Even though the disk only indicates that it is DD and not DD with Surround Ex). The DD track with the Surround EX feature was much better then the DTS track mainly due to the use of the back speakers.

Has anyone found a way to sync the glasses using the mode button? I have tried hitting the mode button and their really does not seem to be a big difference in the picture? Too bad the DVD did not contain the R and L letters like the instructions say! How can you tell when the glasses are not in sync?

 

[Dan Hitchman]

FrankD:

Unless you have a receiver or processor without 6.1 matrix decoding of DTS tracks, the DTS tracks on these discs are DTS-ES matrix encoded and should work fine.

Dan

 

[FrankD]

OK Dan I will try it again and compare.

How does one know if the DTS tracks on a DVD are "DTS-ES matrix encoded" ?

My player is a Lexicon MC-1 and dts ES is supported under it's DTS Logic 7 option. Perhaps I did not have this mode chosen when I played the movie.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

When it doesn't say DTS-ES on the package, but the Dolby Digital track is labeled as EX encoded (or has been determined to be EX encoded) then it is safe to assume the DTS track is ES encoded. There is only one uncompressed 5.1 PCM (or DSD if it's mixed at Sony Studios) master that has been matrix encoded with the back channel and I doubt they would re-mix this when making a home video copy of this archive master in order to strip out the back channel for the DTS version. That would be kind of stupid.

If a DVD cover actually has an official DTS-ES logo (like the ones from Anchor Bay), then that usually means it has a remixed DTS-ES Discrete 6.1 track on board.

I thought the MC-1 could be upgraded to include DTS-ES matrix and DTS-ES Discrete 6.1 modes either by way of a software or hardware switch out. Am I wrong?

Dan

 

[FrankD]

Thanks Dan

Dan wrote:

"I thought the MC-1 could be upgraded to include DTS-ES matrix and DTS-ES Discrete 6.1 modes either by way of a software or hardware switch out. Am I wrong? "

The Lexicon MC-1 does include DTS-ES matrix in the latest software upgrade but their is no upgrade to DTS-

ES Discrete 6.1.